Christian Fittipaldi leads Jordan Taylor and Memo Rojas through turn 10 at Road America. [Mark Walczak Photo]
Elkhart Lake, WI – The Action Express Corvette Prototype team was the overall winner of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship race Sunday at Road America, living up to their motto: “Expect to Win”.
And the victory was no surprise to drivers Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa since coming into the event they had completed every race lap (2,816) in 2014 competition, won at Indianapolis two weeks ago and were part of the team’s double podium in last year’s Road America event.
Their Corvette Prototype led 34 laps and held off the Ford EcoBoost Prototype of John Pew and Oswaldo Negri Jr. by 2.240 sec. as Chevrolet placed three Bowtie’s in the Top 5.
“Scoring back-to-back wins here is great. We had some brake problems early in the race,” noted Fittipaldi, the nephew of former F1 and Indy 500 great Emerson, “but we fixed them and came back to win.”
And in the joyous post-race press conference, Barbosa explained another reason they ran so well in the final laps: “On the last stint our fuel was really tight, but the last few yellows let us get to the end. They actually told me I could go as fast as I wanted on the final laps! I did my best lap at the end.”
Cautions played a major role in the two-hour, 45-minute race as six full-course yellows waved for 94 minutes of the event on Road America’s sweeping 4.04-mile road course.
The Honda Prototype of Scott Sharp and Ryan Dalziel was third, having led just two laps at mid-race.
The PC class was closely contested as Mirco Schultis and Renger van der Zande pushed their Starworks Motorsport Oreca Chevrolet to a 0.415-second win over Luis Diaz and Sean Rayhaal as the two cars crossed the finish line nose to tail.
“We didn’t have the fastest car today, but our pit stops went well,” van der Zande explained. “We were not lucky at Indianapolis where we had engine trouble, but we gained ground in the points.”
PC points leaders Colin Braun and Jon Bennett lost nine laps when their Oreca-Chevrolet destroyed its front bodywork after sliding into the turn-twelve gravel trap. The team retained the PC lead despite its 40th- place finish.
GT LeMans went to the Risi Competizione Ferrari of Gianacarlo Fisichella and Pierre Kaffer as the team celebrated the 60th year of Ferrari in North America.
“Yesterday our qualifying car was sliding, but it was better today. We didn’t expect to win the race (in their class),’ said Fisichella, who has raced in F1 for 14 years and won twice at LeMans. “But late-race pit stops were the key to the race as we came out first and kept that (lead) to the end.”
Finally, in the GT Daytona class, the BMW of Dane Cameron and Markus Palttala scored its third win of the season in a car that needed to stay in front to have a chance to win.
“We wanted to be on the pole because we were down on straightaway speed. There were too many restarts,” Palttala complained. “We didn’t want to see a restart with a couple of minutes to go, but the traffic and pacing were right for us,” as the duo held off the MacNeil/Keen Porsche 911 for the class win.
Actor Patrick Dempsey took his GTD Porsche behind the pit wall and returned to the track almost 30-minutes later after repairing suspension damage and serving a penalty for an incident with the #48 Audi. He, and co-driver Andrew Davis finished 40th, 11 laps behind the leaders.
In their post-race comments, winners Fittipaldi and Barbosa were happy to keep the series’ overall points lead and feel they don’t want to change their race strategy with just three races remaining on the 2014 schedule.
“There’s no doubt about it, time is running out (for their competitors), Fittipaldi noted. “We won’t change the way we race. We’ll race as we’ve been. We’ll try to win each race.”
So far that plan seems to be working for them.
TUDOR NOTES: • Three current IndyCar series drivers ran TUSCC race. Jack Hawksworth finished 12th overall in the Prototype C that he shared with Canadian Chris Cumming. James Davison did not start the event in his GTD Aston Martin V12 Vantage and James Hinchcliffe never got on the track as his co-driver Scott Mayer crashed two laps into the race in their Honda Prototype. • On Sunday morning the 2015 TUDOR schedule was released showing 12 total events. Lime Rock Park was added as a new event, while Indianapolis and Kansas were dropped. • Road America will celebrate its 60th season in 2015 with no indication that neither a Verizon IndyCar event nor a NASCAR Sprint Cup race is forthcoming. • 52 cars were entered this weekend in four classes, but only 48 started. • Katherine Legge and Andy Meyrick had the shiny; chrome DeltaWing Prototype running as high as fifth and finished eighth, 24 seconds behind the winners. • Before the United SportsCar Championship was put together after the 2013 racing season, the ALMS and Rolex series’ held a well-attended doubleheader last August at Road America. • The Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette Dallara Prototype driven by Jordan and Ricky Taylor led the field with 46 minutes remaining but the steering broke during a caution period and the Konica-sponsored mount hit the tire wall at the “Speedville Bridge”. • Besides winning the race, two Corvettes finished sixth and seventh in the GTLM class.
• Winner Christian Fittipaldi won his first-ever Champ Car race here in 1999, and Uncle Emerson had three CART wins at RA (1986, ’88 and ’92). “Emmo” also stood on the podium five times.
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